


darling, don't make such a drama

by shinealightonme



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Angst and Humor, Author Does Not Like Niall Lynch, Family, Friendship, Gen, Lynch Sibling Rivalry, M/M, compartmentalization and other super healthy ways of dealing with your feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 21:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14144754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/pseuds/shinealightonme
Summary: "Straight answers are boring," Cheng says, "and yes I do mean that for all values of straight. I do not need Ronan to share his tragic backstory, I would much rather deduce it on my own.""Who says I have a tragic backstory?""With your fearsome glower and troubled good looks? If you did not have a tragic backstory it would be a waste."





	darling, don't make such a drama

**Author's Note:**

  * For [burn_it_slow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/burn_it_slow/gifts).



> Written for burn-it-slow in thanks for her generous contribution to Fandom Trumps Hate! She wanted Henry and Ronan to be forced to hang out with each other, and then somehow I got all my Lynch family feels all over it. I hope you enjoy my Lynch germs.
> 
> Contains discussion of off-screen waitress harassment and past self-harm.

"So what's it going to be tonight?" Cheng asks. "Sex on the beach? Sex in the shower? Sex with a handsome stranger -- "

"None of those are real cocktails."

"Sex on the beach is," Sargent points out.

"I said _real_ cocktails."

"Oh, shut up with your No True Scotsman bullshit."

"That's racist," Ronan says. "I'm Irish."

Cheng ignores all of this and bulldozes over them, because it's a day that ends in _-y._ "Do not limit yourself, my friend! You're a mixologist. No, more than that. You are an artist, and the bar is your canvas! Create something. Be the sex with a handsome stranger that you want to see in the world."

Ronan listens to this plea, and then he goes to the blackboard behind the bar and erases _amaretto sour_ (Sargent's pick for yesterday) and underneath the words _cocktail of the day_ he writes BEER.

Cheng sighs. "Every time. He does this every time. Remind me, why does Ronan get a turn picking the drink special?"

"Because you're cute enough to believe in direct democracy," Sargent says. "Me, I wanted to be a benevolent tyrant, but no, you said everyone should get a turn."

"Democracy dies when people don't vote," Cheng says to Ronan. "You are killing democracy."

"I did vote," Ronan says. "I voted for beer."

Sargent stalks off, disgusted.

"Just wait," Cheng says. "On my next turn I will make the drink of the day a Surly Irishman, and then you will be the one who will have to figure out what to serve for that."

"Cool. It'll be a beer."

"Does it physically pain you to be creative?"

"Yup."

"I have never met a person whose appearance was so unfortunate as to make me describe them by saying, 'they have a great personality'. But you? If someone should ask me, 'Henry, that Ronan Lynch, what is he like?' I would have to say, 'well, he is very attractive'."

"Takes one to know one."

"Even the class of your insults leaves something to be desired! No, I simply must leave, I wash my hands of you," which would have been great if it was true, except Cheng is back at his bar half an hour later to bug him again, and then half an hour after that, like a cuckoo clock with loud hair and louder opinions.

And Cheng's little interruptions are the best part of the night, which is just fucking sad. Ronan hates Friday nights at the bar. They're busy and crowded and full of people having _fun_ , instead of the weekday crowd of depressed lonely alcoholics, which is what a bar is for. The tips are better on Fridays, but he doesn't _need_ tips. Tips don't make up for every other woman and every third man hitting on him, don't make up for the birthday party that asks him to take their picture, don't make up for Cheng and Sargent being too busy for more than a minute's conversation here and there.

Not that he _wants_ Cheng and Sargent to hang out and bug him with their dumb chatter, but he's used to it.

"The Ghosts of Christmas Creepy are back," Sargent says, dropping her pad on the bar where Ronan can see it.

Ronan starts pouring the first drink in the order. He does not, at the same time, reach under the bar for the glass of Fireball that Sargent definitely hasn't been taking sips out of all night, and he definitely doesn't place it on the bar, and she definitely doesn't take a nip.

Seriously, though, Sargent. _Fireball._

"Don't care," he says, because he is not invested in this stupid game Sargent and Cheng have where they gossip about the customers. For fuck's sake, they have _code names_ for all of the regulars. Who can be bothered with that shit?

"Table seven, you can't see them from here." Sargent does not cough from the non-burn of the not-Fireball she isn't drinking. "They always stop talking as soon as I'm in earshot. I think they're plotting something. Something sinister."

"Sure. Identical triplets who work for the mob. That sounds real."

Cheng comes running up, because that's what Ronan needs, this conversation was _too grounded in reality._

"Guess who's here," Sargent says.

"I guarantee you it is not as exciting as the news that I have come to break," Cheng says. "Poker Face just showed up."

Sargent's eyes go wide. "Please tell me you seated him in my section."

"As though I could do any less for the light of my life," Cheng scoffs. "Table fourteen."

Sargent kisses his cheek. Her cheap-ass lipstick leaves a mark. "You are a gentleman and a scholar."

"You are a _host_ ," Ronan says, "so get back to the _front of the restaurant._ "

Cheng doesn't protest the obvious brush-off. He only smiles, and sips some of Sargent's Fireball, "you know, Lynch, I seated him at fourteen just for you," and then he dashes back off to do his job before Ronan can strangle him.

Poker Face had first shown up at the restaurant four or five months ago on a dinner that had all of the hallmarks of an internet date. They'd been seated at a table in the bar area, so Ronan had had a really good view of the awkward silence and lack of eye contact. Since then, he'd come in to the restaurant two or three times a month, always with a new companion, and always with a similar level of successful human interaction.

Sargent had started calling him Poker Face after the night that ended with his date faking an emergency phone call, because he kept a straight face no matter how terribly his night went, and because she figured anyone who was that unlucky in love had to be very lucky at cards.

Table fourteen isn't in the bar, but it's close. If Ronan cranes his neck he could see it.

He doesn't look. He doesn't care. This is stupid beyond belief.

"What shitshow did he scrounge up this time?" Ronan asks the next time Sargent comes up with an order.

"No one yet," she says. "Maybe he got stood up."

"Probably be the best date he's had."

Cheng just pops up out of nowhere, which shouldn't be possible for the human equivalent of an air raid siren, but Ronan's stopped trying to figure out how he does it. "Still no one?"

"Nope."

"He must be lonely. Lynch, take your break and go sit with him."

Ronan sprays him with soda water.

Cheng pats his shirt dry, unfazed. "Do we think it's going to be a man or a woman this time?"

"It's mostly been women," Sargent says. "Are we sure the men were dates?"

Ronan says, "yes" at the same time as Cheng, and then scowls at having been tricked into agreeing with him.

"Sorry, I'll never doubt your queerdar again."

"You need not apologize for doubting me, I know that I will always win back your faith in the end," Cheng says. "You should apologize to Poker Face for accusing him of being straight."

Ronan snorts, dangerously close to amused.

But not half as amused as Cheng looks, glancing at Ronan out of the corner of his eye. "And apologize to Lynch for trying to deprive him of the fantasy that he could be the one to save Poker Face from his lonely loveless life."

"Sorry, Lynch," Sargent says, not sorry in the least. Which she should be, her and Cheng both, because Ronan does not fantasize about the customers.

"Aren't you two supposed to be somewhere?"

"As commendable as I find your work ethic, I would like to point out that I am working."

"No, you're not."

"Keeping informed on the status of the restaurant is part of a host's job."

"Checking on the wait time is not the same as gossiping with the other employees."

"I have decided to undertake a campaign of improving employee morale."

"Really," Ronan says, "when does that start?"

"Well, not _now_ ," Cheng says, "as I have just become possessed of the bad news that Poker Face's date is here and she is a knockout."

Ronan looks over at table fourteen, curses himself as an idiot when Cheng and Sargent smirk at each other.

There is a woman approaching table fourteen. Ronan doesn't consider himself an expert on what makes a woman a knockout, but he's got no reason to doubt Cheng's assessment.

Poker Face stands to greet his date, but she's already started to sit down. There's an momentary stand off before he sits back down in his seat.

"Well, that's a rough start," Sargent says, and hurries off to take their order. Cheng disappears as well, off to improve employee morale. A waste of time in a restaurant that's turned over most of its staff twice in the year that Ronan's worked here.

Which leaves no one to know, if Ronan happens to look over at table fourteen more often than chance would allow for.

Sargent once said that Poker Face was _cute._ Ronan didn't think that was the right word, but he knew what she meant. You got a sense when you looked at him, that you were missing more than you were seeing. You wanted to know what he looked like when he was happy, when he was angry, when he was feeling anything strongly enough that he couldn't hide it.

Or, you know, whatever. Some people might feel like that. Not Ronan. That was the kind of shit that people who can't hold their liquor think. Ronan can hold his liquor just fine, thanks.

Cheng gets off an hour before the restaurant closes, orders a "sex on a bear skin rug" just to be annoying, takes the scotch on the rocks that Ronan pours him without complaint.

Sargent closes out the restaurant and Ronan closes out the bar. They finish up at roughly the same time.

"Going to join us tonight?" Cheng raises his drink, clinks the ice inside the glass.

"Got plans."

"Doing what?"

"Stuff."

"Oh, leave it." Sargent zips up her jacket. "That's what you get for trying to get a straight answer from Ronan. I've been here six months and I've never heard him say anything about himself. Except that time he told the homophobe he was gay, that was awesome," she adds, and Ronan shrugs, modest. It had been a pretty awesome moment. If _every_ night in a bar involved freaking the shit out of asshole customers, maybe he wouldn't be so pissed off all the time.

"Straight answers are boring," Cheng says, "and yes I do mean that for all values of straight. I do not need Ronan to share his tragic backstory, I would much rather deduce it on my own."

"Who says I have a tragic backstory?"

"With your fearsome glower and troubled good looks? If you did not have a tragic backstory it would be a waste."

" _Bye, Cheng._ "

Ronan goes home. He hadn't realized he'd been in a good mood until it up and left him. _Tragic backstory_ \-- well, good luck deducing that. Ronan keeps his business to himself.

He realizes that he's standing over his computer, staring at the webpage for Lynch's, and he snarls and shuts the computer off. He's restless and unsettled and pissed off, and maybe he should have gone out with Sargent and Cheng after all. He could use a little trouble.

He flicks off the lights, disgusted, and falls into bed.

-

It's a slow Wednesday night, just a few subdued couples in the bar and one loner who's going for world's speediest liver collapse. The restaurant's doing brisker business, but not by much. By eight o'clock it's pretty dead, so Ronan's surprised when Sargent walks up to the bar and it's not just to bug him or to challenge Mr. Jameson Book of World Records in the corner.

But that's nothing compared to how surprised he is when he hears the order:

"One Manhattan, and a shot of the cheapest tequila we have."

Ronan freezes. "What?"

"Hey, I warned the guy, don't ask for cheap unless you really want cheap, because we know _cheap_ \-- "

"What table?"

"Seven," and it would be just like him to end up at a table that was out of sight of the bar.

Ronan ducks out. "Going on my break."

"What about my order?" Sargent demands.

"It's not an order," Ronan tells her, "it's a message."

"Could you _be_ more annoying?" and that's got to be a rhetorical question. If Sargent doesn't already know that the answer to that is _yes_ then Ronan has let down her, himself, and God.

He didn't get any warning, so he doesn't give any warning; rounds the corner into the restaurant and hops over the back of the booth to sit at table seven. He already knows the open seat is going to be the one facing the wall -- the one with the crappy view.

Declan doesn't even have the decency to look surprised by Ronan literally dropping in on him. "Ronan, hello," and then he goes right back to reading the menu.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Dining, if I can find anything on the menu that isn't deep-fried or stuffed with cheese. Or both, God, I'm having traumatic flashbacks to undergrad malnutrition..."

"Why. Are you. Here."

"I could ask you the same question."

"I work here," and just like that he's lost, because Declan's managed to put him on the defensive. "Get up. You're leaving."

"No." Declan snaps the menu shut. "You've had your fun avoiding me, now we're going to talk."

He's not feigning disinterest anymore. He has the focused intensity of a man who is prepared to pull any and every kind of shit necessary to get his way.

Ronan's pretty good at foiling Declan, but only pretty good. And he has more to lose right now than Declan.

"Outside."

Declan doesn't argue or gloat. He's up on his feet, grabbing his coat, as soon as Ronan has spoken.

Ronan's out the door before him, walks through the parking lot to Declan's car. Declan stops at the driver's door, but makes no move to unlock it. Ronan would rather have the privacy of being inside the car, but not enough he's going to ask for it.

They stand, divided by metal and money and time.

"So? What was so important it couldn't wait until Sunday?"

"Admit it, Ronan, we don't talk on Sundays," Declan says. "You show up, you play nice in church, you talk to Matthew about Matthew, or you make Matthew talk to me. You don't say one word about yourself -- "

"Didn't stop you from finding out where I work."

"I should not have to investigate my own brother to know anything about his life."

"You didn't have to, you wanted to."

"Dammit, Ronan, stop splitting hairs. What are you even doing at this dump?" He gestures a hand at the place that Ronan has referred to, among other things, as _a shithole_ , _the third circle of hell_ , and _what people mean when they say 'actual trashcan fire'._

"It's a casual dining establishment with full bar service," he says. "And I'm working. What's the problem? You said I needed a job."

"A job at the company," Declan says. "We can take you on freelance if you're hellbent on avoiding responsibility."

"Cool, nepotism, that always works out well."

"Nepotism isn't a meaningful distinction in a _family business._ "

"You ever think that's your problem? That you shouldn't mix family and business?"

"That's a convenient excuse for abandoning your family in their hour of need."

Ronan rolls his eyes. "Hour of need, what, are you getting sued by some pissy art collector again? It's not the end of the world."

"The company is floundering," Declan snaps. "Dad _was_ Lynch's Fine Art and everyone knows it. They're all waiting to see if it can survive without him, and it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that his handpicked successor fucked off to tend bar at a _casual dining establishment._ "

"You wanted to be CEO," Ronan says. "Congrats. You are, now this shit is your problem. You solve it."

"I'm not here for patronizing advice." Well, he's not here to _get_ patronizing advice. "I know how to do my damn job. I'm here to ask you to rejoin the family, for real and not in this half-ass way where you come to Mass and pretend you've done your duty."

"Funny how doing my duty and working for you are the same thing."

"So don't! Just do something that doesn't look like you're spitting on our name. Become a collector. Buy a loft and do your own art. Work for a charity -- "

"Right, I could really host gala lunches for the symphony." Ronan rolls his eyes. "Tell me you didn't come here to bitch at me about my job not being respectable enough for you."

Declan exhales. "Matthew's addressing the shareholders on Friday."

"I thought that kind of drudgery was why they made CEO."

"He wants to take on more responsibility." Ronan snorts. If Matthew ever said that string of words, it was pure regurgitation, and he can guess who shoved it down his throat in the first place. "You should be there."

"So it all looks proper?"

"So he has a friendly fucking face to look at in a high-pressure situation."

"Well," Ronan says. "I guess I have to give you points for knowing that you aren't a friendly face."

The vein in Declan's neck throbs.

"Friday," he says through gritted teeth. "Noon. Wear a suit," and _now_ he unlocks the car, but only on the driver's side, and then he drives away.

-

Ronan works a double on Friday.

He does text Matthew, around two o'clock, _how'd it go_

Matthew responds: _pretty good? idk Declan told me not to worry about it_ , which means it was a shitshow.

Poker Face is on another date, a bottle blonde who's laughing at something he says every time Ronan looks over.

"What do you know, Poker Face might get lucky tonight," Sargent muses, as they watch him help his date into her coat.

"Doubt it," Ronan says.

"Is that a case of wishful thinking I hear?" Cheng asks.

"Doubt it," Ronan says again, and ignores Cheng's blatant demands for further information. He doesn't owe anyone shit.

-

Ronan doesn't close that night, wraps up an hour early, just as Cheng's getting off his shift. Sargent had clocked out before either of them, but she's out on the curb when they leave. She raises an eyebrow.

Ronan is sick and pissed at Declan and desperate for a release, any kind of release.

He follows them out to Sargent's car, listens to the bubblegum pop that Cheng insists on singing along with. Doesn't pay any attention to where they are until the car stops and the engine shuts off, and he looks up to sees a half-constructed condo complex.

He grabs Cheng's duffel bag out of the trunk, because he just wants a can of paint in his hand -- and then the fucking block hits him, like it's been hitting him, knocking him down over and over again, for twelve fucking months.

"You should paint a portrait of me." Sargent is bossy as all hell and she'd only get bossier if she knew he'd called her that.

"You're barking up the wrong tree," Ronan says. "You're not even in the right forest."

"Ugh." Sargent gags, so gratuitously that her chewing gum falls out of her mouth. "Paint something before I go chug a gallon of bleach to get that image out of my brain and _die._ "

Ronan snorts, rolls his eyes when she kneels down to pick up her gum and throw it in the trashcan -- God forbid they litter while they're committing vandalism.

But he doesn't have any better ideas, any ideas at all, and when he thinks, _Sargent_ , he does actually have an image in his mind of what that painting looks like. A small dense angry sun, jagged rays of light shooting off it like javelins.

Cheng surveys the final result with a critical eye. "If someone told me that is what I looked like, I'd be offended and never speak to them again."

"Now you tell me. Hold still and I'll do you next."

"I like it," Sargent says, studying Ronan's fierce mess of colors as though she can read it perfectly. "It looks like how I feel."

"Representational art's a cop out."

Cheng looks _delighted._ Fucking weirdo. "Our charming neighborhood thug has hidden depths."

Sargent smacks on a new piece of gum. "Not really. Quit hogging the paint, lemme do one."

"Go stand watch."

"You stand watch," Sargent retorts.

Ronan goes, because that's as much intellectual debate as he can stomach in one night. In between looking out for cars he watches Sargent's elaborate letters take form to spell out FUCK HATE, watches Cheng's simpler words twist out the message, ALL LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL (EVEN STRAIGHT LOVE).

-

Ronan wouldn't ever have predicted this becoming a _thing._ He still wasn't sure why it had. All he knew was, he'd worked late one night, about a month after Cheng started, worked until he was the last one there. He liked being the only person in the entire building, every noise he made huge and resonating until it filled him up, and then he'd leave and let the noise follow him home.

So he'd been pissed off to exit the restaurant and hear people, laughing and talking and stomping around. He'd followed the sound of their voices to pick a fight and found Sargent and Cheng spray painting the back wall of the restaurant. 

"Are you morons?" Ronan demanded, and Cheng dropped his paint can. It fell on his foot and sprayed half his sneaker green. "Are you tagging your own fucking building?"

"I am creating a work of art," Cheng said.

Ronan squints at his 'art'. "Is that a puking emoji?"

"It's smiling," Cheng insisted, but Sargent snorted loudly like she agreed with Ronan.

"Why's it green?"

"I am not constrained by convention," Cheng says.

"Also we ran out of yellow," Sargent adds.

"Fine, if you think you can do better." Cheng tossed a can at Ronan in a flashy, twisting end-over-end way that absolutely meant he'd practiced it.

Ronan caught the can a second before it would have smacked his face, with a loud _thwap_ of metal on skin.

He could have let it drop. It was dumb as shit to tag a building you worked in every day, and no one was even keeping a lookout.

He shook the can once. It felt comfortable and familiar in his hand, never mind how long it had been since the last time he'd done this. Some things you don't forget. It was like vandalizing a bicycle.

But whatever. Nostalgia was just how the devil got you to sign on for racism and bell bottom jeans. Ronan ignored the feeling of rightness and focused on the wall in front of him, laid down one solid exploratory stripe. The wall was some grody-ass stucco shit, too much to ask for nice brick, but it wasn't so bad he couldn't do better than Cheng.

He fell into the rhythm of painting, called out, "hey, toss me some blue," because he wanted to add some detail and someone was too lazy to get yellow paint.

The blue whirled at his head, deadly fast -- Sargent's doing. Ronan caught it anyway, tossed it up in the air and caught it again the right way around, started spraying with both hands.

"I am," he heard Cheng say behind him, "tremendously turned on right now."

"Ew, no, that's _Lynch_ ," Sargent says.

"Reason objects, but cannot refute the truth my eyes have seen." Yeah, just for that, Ronan made his smiley face vomit cerulean all over Cheng's.

"You afraid of heights?" Sargent asked.

Ronan stared at her: _what do you think._

"There's this PETA billboard I wanna deface, and Henry doesn't do ladders."

"A completely reasonable position to take!"

"Thought you were an animal nut," Ronan said.

"Right, which is why I hate PETA." Sargent shouldered the bag of spray cans. "You coming or what?"

Ronan looked at her, and then back at the wall, and the stupid graffiti vomiting face that was the first piece of art he'd managed to produce since the car accident.

"I'm not afraid of heights." He chucked the can right back at Sargent, as hard as she'd thrown it at him. He wasn't going to go easy just because she was a woman. "Let's go fuck up PETA."

-

Since then it's been blank walls, freeway underpasses, condemned buildings, more billboards than Ronan can count -- for PETA, for the Congressional primaries, for some sitcom Ronan has never seen ("what'd they do to piss you off?" "It's not _funny_ , oh my God, it has a _laugh track_ ").

Cheng and Sargent pick the spots, buy the paints, choose the time, invite Ronan.

Ronan says no sometimes, because art is family or art is fun or art is life, maybe, and none of those things are supposed to be mixed with work. Because once upon a time there had been one Ronan, a Ronan who had everything, family and work and art all together, and hadn't _that_ worked out just fucking great. Now he keeps them separate. If you keep them separate, one disaster can't kill you.

But he says yes sometimes, more and more often. Because boredom is pushing him inch by inch closer to insanity. Because it's the only time he creates anything. Because nights he says _no_ he goes home and reads the latest auction results at Christie's, at Sotheby's, at Lynch's, until he forgets that art is anything but a price tag.

-

Sunday is awkward.

Sundays have been awkward for years -- since their parents died, since Niall announced his plans for succession, since Declan started his MBA program, since Ronan flunked out of college, since Ronan came out, since that time Matthew asked right in front of the waitress what _Irish twins_ were, since Matthew was born -- actually, Ronan can't think of a time that Sunday mass and brunch hasn't been awkward. Maybe before he was born; Declan was probably thrilled to be an only child. Then again, if any infant could find a reason to feel thwarted and dissatisfied, it would be Declan.

But family is family, and Ronan remembers his father telling Declan _these are you brothers, you have to take care of them,_ even if Declan doesn't. It would take a lot more than an argument over a stupid shareholder meeting to scare him away.

"I'm glad that you weren't too busy with work to join us, Ronan."

Declan is doing that chilly and aloof thing, like he can shame Ronan into spontaneously apologizing and shedding his tattoo and adding ten thousand words to his fucking vocabulary. Thank Jesus for Matthew. Their mom used to call him her rose between two thorns, for his ability to play demilitarized zone between his brothers on long car rides, and he never really stopped doing it.

Ronan nudges Matthew's foot. "You go see that exhibit I told you about?"

Declan rolls his eyes and sips at his coffee. He doesn't believe in art shows in neighborhoods that haven't gentrified yet, not unless he's slumming it for some bohemian tail.

"Oh yeah!" Matthew brightens. "I loved it. Lots of photos of horses."

Declan sighs again, at the same time as Ronan, which just makes Ronan glare at Declan -- leave Matthew's arts education to the brother who actually has some fucking taste. Except now they're both glaring, mirror images of each other, exactly alike and flipped completely around.

Ronan looks away first. "Hey, Lisa Frank, what did you think of the _composition_ of the photos?"

"Oh, I mean, I liked how the artist was using strained and unfamiliar angles to make the ordinary seem strange and foreign." He waves a hand. "But mostly I liked that there were horses. And art is whatever you like, right?"

"That's not the quote," Declan says.

"But sure," Ronan cuts him off. "Art's anything you want it to be."

"Right, it's not like words having meaning, let's just erode all our standards."

"Yeah. Let's."

"Oh, they have bacon _inside of the pancakes_ ," Matthew says, fixated on the menu. Rose between two thorns.

-

"I thought representational art was a cop out."

"It is."

"While I would never dream of critiquing your work," Cheng continues, "it is only that that appears to represent a horse."

"It's symbolic."

"Ah." Cheng clicks his tongue. "Well. That clarifies nothing. Symbolic of what?"

 _Art is whatever you like,_ and the stretch of freeway they've all just defaced is right between Matthew's apartment and the headquarters for Lynch's.

"A horse," Ronan says, and climbs up the wall, where Cheng is too chickenshit to follow.

-

"I am taking suggestions for color palettes," Cheng says.

"Oh, don't ask Ronan," Sargent says, "I refuse to paint the break room black."

"The managers are letting you repaint the break room?" Ronan didn't figure their cheap-ass management would shell out for the biohazard suits that job would require.

"Oh, managers, letting me." Cheng waves a hand dismissively. "I find it's better to not ask for permission and then do the thing so flawlessly that no forgiveness is required."

"You put way too much work into a job that's minimum wage plus tips."

"I have, as some have said, an abundance of energy." Cheng actually looks sad, but it passes quickly, like all of his whims. "For which you should be glad. Without my enthusiasm we would not have the cocktail of the day -- "

" -- pain in my ass of the day -- "

" -- or the employee morale improvement committee."

"There's a committee of you now?" Ronan demands, aiming it at Sargent. She never shies away from telling him the truth, provided it's a truth she knows he won't like. She nods. "Keep your committee away from me."

"Do you know the great failing of employee relations programs?" Cheng asks him.

"Life is nasty, brutish, and short?"

"They attempt a one-size fits all, one solution for everyone approach. We want to do better, to meet the individual needs of every soul employed at this fine restaurant and bar. And we have determined, the best thing we can do to make Ronan Lynch happy is...to leave him alone."

Ronan blinks.

"No thanks necessary," Sargent says, sarcastic.

"I'm not going to thank you for doing nothing."

"You say that like it's _easier_ for Henry to leave something alone." Sargent rolls her eyes. "Can we just get a color preference from you so we can ignore it and move on already?"

He'd been twisting over the problem of colors in the back of his mind without meaning to, just something to keep his brain busy. The break room has tiny windows and shitty lighting. The walls are currently industrial off-white, tinged with fingerprints and depression and tobacco, indoor smoking laws be damned. It'd be hard as hell to get anything that didn't look awful back there, but maybe --

"The break room's gonna look like shit until you get rid of the fucking fluorescent lights, they make everything look too blue. At least paint the walls a warm color like a gold or an amber or some shit. And for fuck's sake not a _matte_ paint or they're going to be all smudged up again in a day."

Sargent and Cheng stare at him.

Ronan feels heat roll up his neck. He starts rewashing clean glasses to have something to do.

"Way to uphold stereotypes about gay guys and interior design," Sargent says.

"Don't ask for my opinion if you don't want it," Ronan snaps.

"Right, because that's your big failing, you _talk about yourself too much._ "

 _This_ is what Ronan gets for sharing himself, any part of himself. He's been right all along. The different parts of his life are separate, and that's how they belong, that's how they should be. That's how they _will_ be.

-

"Poker Face wants his usual," Sargent says. Ronan deliberately does not look up. "And a scotch and soda for his date."

"Oh, Poker Face is working the bi-credentials tonight." Cheng, in what has become his habit, came straight to the bar after showing Poker Face to his table and waited to dish about him with Sargent.

"I know that I don't need to tell you bi is bi." Ronan can hear the frown in Sargent's voice; he's still not looking up. "Assuming he IDs as bi, anyway."

"These are the facts of my life," Cheng says cheerfully, "and yet, I find myself that little bit more happy about same-sex couples."

"Life is just one long process of unpacking your baggage and realizing there was more baggage underneath it," Sargent says dryly.

"Hm. Perhaps the real heteronormativity was inside of us all along?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

Ronan has finished Sargent's drink order, and the two of them are distracted enough by their fucking Intro to Queer Studies seminar, so he figures it's actually safe to look over at table fourteen.

He freezes.

He hasn't seen that face in years, but it's not like he could _forget._ Even if it has been years, even if he is dressed up like a human and not the demon-spawn that he is. Ronan had heard that K got some high finance job, which, yeah, sounds about right, power and cocaine and human suffering. If you didn't know better, you could believe that was all that he was, a douchey little finance bro, if you didn't _know_ that he was a snake with a chunk of poison for a heart.

And Poker Face doesn't know better.

"Not one fucking word." He points vehemently at Sargent.

She blinks. "Um, okay?"

Ronan grabs a coaster and writes _your date is a psychopath_ on it before holding it out to Sargent. "Get that to Poker Face."

She takes it. Reads it, of course.

"I would like the record to show," she says, deliberate and stately, "that I am not saying anything."

"You're talking this exact second."

"Well, no, not the second that you said 'this exact second'," Cheng points out.

Ronan glares at him, and back at Sargent again, too. "Just. Go."

To her credit, she goes. Sets K's drink down first, and while he's sipping at it she moves so she's half-blocking his view of the table, and puts the coaster down in front of Poker Face.

Ronan finally gets to see his composure break -- a look of shock, gone in a flash, but it's more than he'd seen over the course of a dozen bad dates.

Sargent sets the beer down after a second's delay, and Poker Face tears his eyes off the table to say something to her -- probably thank you; if he weren't the kind to thank the waitress Sargent would have bitched about it by now. Then he takes a sip of his beer and jostles it putting it back down. Spills just enough that he has to flip the coaster over.

Ronan does _not_ feel impressed about that bit of subterfuge. Especially not since Poker Face _ignores the message_ , makes Ronan's whole sacrifice pointless. He sticks it out at the table, over the course of a whole meal, though Ronan doesn't need to ask Sargent for updates to know that shit's gotten weird.

K orders another scotch and soda. Poker Face abstains, still nursing his first beer. At least he has that much sense.

There's a moment of negotiation over the check, tense even from twenty feet away, and then K leaves, alone. Poker Faces leans back in his chair. Scrubs a hand over his face, composure slipping again, and then he looks up, straight over at the bar, and make eye contact with Ronan.

Ronan breaks first, turns to start pouring a beer, the same red that Poker Face always orders.

A coaster drops down on the bar in front of him, his own handwriting staring up at him, blurred and waterlogged but still legible.

Poker Face tapes on the coaster, wordless inquiry.

Ronan nods and sets the beer down in front of him. "Figured you'd need this."

"Thanks." He takes a sip. "I should have just taken the out." He has a nice voice, low and suffused with a kind of sharp-edged humor. It's exactly the kind of voice Ronan would have imagined for him if Ronan wasted any time on anything as stupid as wondering what the regulars sound like.

"You should've," Ronan agrees. Normally he'd let it rest there -- he's poured out a drink, that's the extent of kinship he owes anyone who had the bad luck of dating his very worst ex -- but. There's a certain morbid curiosity kicking its heels in the back of his brain. K is his _very worst_ ex, after all. And it's not like he's been curious about a lot in the last year. "That bad?"

"Just usual blind date awkward, at first. But once he figured out that I wasn't impressed with his act, yeah. That bad."

"How the hell did you end up on a blind date with K?"

"My neighbor set me up."

"Does your neighbor hate you?"

Poker Face drums his fingers on the bar, considering. "It's one of three distinct possibilities."

"What are the other two?"

"She's one of those people who thinks bi means no standards. She is seventy, I guess I should be impressed she knows what bi means at all."

"Third possibility?"

"Septuagenarian prank show."

Ronan snorts. "There's no hidden cameras. Probably she just hates you."

"Yeah, I'm not going to ask her to water my plants next time I go out of town."

He doesn't know why that's so surprising, but it is. "You have plants and you go on a new first date every week, is there anything in your life that isn't completely tragic?"

Poker Face squints at him. "You're the bartender, aren't you supposed to be making me feel better?"

"Alcohol is a depressant, I don't know where everyone gets that idea. If your life sucks that's your problem."

"My life's not that bad." He drums his fingers again, considering a new problem. "They're very _nice_ plants. I have a window box and everything."

"That's the saddest thing I've ever heard," Ronan says dryly. "I'd comp you a drink if I hadn't done it already. And if I wasn't worried you'd cry into it."

Poker Face shrugs. "All I wanted growing up was to be in charge of my own life, and I am."

"Oh, well, here's to having and achieving one single goal in life."

He smiles and exhales, like Ronan isn't quite funny enough to have made him laugh, and lifts up his glass. But his face turns thoughtful and he sets it down again without taking a sip.

"Why did you say that, that I go on a new first date every week?"

"Because you do?" Ronan doesn't get it yet. "Do you sleepwalk or something? I figured you knew how often you went out."

"I know how often I go out," he says. "But I didn't realize that the bartender I've never spoken to _also knows that._ "

Oh, fuck. Now Ronan gets it.

"You're in here all the time," he says, shooting for casual. He's pretty sure he's not even close. "We start to recognize the regulars after a while."

" _We_?"

Ronan shrugs again. "The staff here."

"Oh my God." Poker Face has abandoned all composure by now. He looks horrified. "I can never show my face here again."

Ronan's heart sinks -- because how is it that _he's_ more horrifying than a blind date with Joseph Kavinsky, because this is exactly what he gets for sticking his neck out, because Cheng and Sargent are going to be insufferable if he scares their favorite spectacle away.

"We recognize everyone that comes in that often," he says. "You're not special."

Poker Face looks up at him, deeply annoyed. "You know when you're embarrassed and you tell yourself, well, at least no one else noticed? You just told me this entire restaurant has noticed my inability to land a second date."

"Yeah, so? Who cares?"

"I care. Dating sucks enough without an audience."

"If it sucks so much then why do it?"

"I mean, you have to, right? I'm hoping at some point it stops being terrible." He grimaces. "God, that sounds stupid, doesn't it."

"Yup."

"Thanks."

"Look, your problem isn't what I think," Ronan says. "Your problem is you need to stop going to dates you hate."

Poker Face frowns, instantly suspicious. "I thought you weren't the cheer up customers, give advice kind of bartender."

Ronan doesn't have a good answer for that. He's already put too much of himself into this conversation. "You didn't mind when I was rude, I figured being nice would get rid of you."

"It might," Poker Face says. "When do you start?"

Ronan scowls at him.

Poker Face sips his beer. "I guess I could give up on personal happiness and just go back to working eighteen hours a day."

"Yeah, that sounds healthier." That morbid curiosity tugs at him again. Poker Face's job is probably something _really stupid._ "What do you do?"

"Talk rich people into giving me money, mostly."

"What are you, a hooker?"

"For charity."

"You can be a hooker for charity?"

Poker Face opens his mouth. Shuts it.

"I was going to correct you, but that's not a bad description of my job."

"If you're putting out for work why do you even need to go on all these dates?"

Poker Face pulls out his wallet. "Metaphorical hooker -- see?"

Ronan takes what's offered, only realizes after the fact that's a business card:

  
_Adam Parrish_  
_Director of Resource Management_  
_Children's Care Alliance_  
_ending childhood abuse and poverty_

"If you get any rich people drinking to quiet their conscience, point them my way."

"You'd take advantage of a sad drunk?"

Poker Face -- Adam -- shrugs. "Is evil in service of a good cause truly evil?"

"Yeah. It is."

"Okay, then, yeah, I'm fine with being evil."

A group of women descends on the bar, loud and already a few drinks into the night, pushing a chick with the sash reading BRIDE-TO-BE up to the front.

"She's getting _married,_ " one of the women shouts.

"Bummer," Ronan says. None of the bachelorette party notices anything odd about that, but he thinks he hears Adam not-laugh.

It's the last Ronan hears from him. After he finishes with the bachelorette party's eight hundred and three complicated fruit cocktails -- half of them order Cheng's cocktail of the day, ugh -- there's two waiters with drink orders for their tables, and then the fucking keg on the IPA runs out and God forbid they not have a million IPAs on tap at all times. By the time he gets back out front, Adam is gone, just an empty glass with a five dollar bill tucked under it. A tip, on a free drink.

Ronan doesn't touch it.

The bride-to-be and her forty-seven best friends leave to go grace another bar with the presence, and Sargent and Cheng descend on the bar. Ronan, for once in his life, wishes that he'd flirted more. He could have gotten the bachelorette party to stick around and put off this conversation.

Sargent bounces up to him. "All right, tell us _everything._ "

"No."

"Ronan!" Sargent has the nerve to sound offended. "The only reason we didn't eavesdrop is that we thought you would fill us in."

"That's your bad judgment, not mine."

"Oh, Blue," Cheng says, putting on an expression like he's the voice of reason and not just as bad as she is. "You cannot expect Lynch to tell us about how Poker Face was hitting on him."

"He was not _hitting on me_ ," and dammit, now he's engaging in their dumbassery.

"He gave you his number."

"He gave me his _business card._ " Ronan did, at least, have the presence of mind to stick that in his pocket, out of sight of prying eyes. "No one has ever hit on someone with a business card."

"I have done that very thing three times in the last month alone."

"You're a host at a shitty restaurant. Why do you have business cards?"

"So that I can give them to people I am attempting to hit on."

"That's a terrible move," Sargent tells Cheng. "Very douchey. If a guy gave me his business card I'd make him eat it."

Ronan is grateful for any bit of support. Gratitude makes him grumpy. He glares at Sargent -- but, you know, _gratefully._ "Thanks."

"I'm not agreeing with you, I'm just trying to up Henry's game," Sargent says. "It's a bad move, but it's still a _move._ Poker Face definitely wants to take you on a sad and ill-fated date."

Ronan slams a hand on the bar.

Sargent and Cheng jump.

"Listen," he says, low and mean. "I am not one of the regulars and you don't get to make up little stories about me for your own fucking amusement. My life is none of your business."

Sargent's lips turn up. She can do _cruel_ just as well as Ronan can. "Right. More of our bad judgment. Come on, Henry," and they leave Ronan alone, which is exactly how he wants to be.

-

The first reading is Genesis, Joseph and his useless asshole brothers. Matthew sits in between them, like always, and they all pretend that Declan wouldn't throw Ronan down a well and sell him into Egypt if he had half a chance.

The weapons of fraternal warfare have changed in five thousand years, but the emotions have not. They've only just sat down to brunch when Declan asks Ronan, "how are things at the bar?"

"Fine."

Declan waits, a long opening to him to expand on that.

Ronan doesn't fall for it. He's never been scared of silence.

"And how's your art?" Because it's just like Declan to know that Ronan has been blocked for months. For a year.

"Fine." Ronan sips his coffee. "How are the shareholders, still sharpening their knives?"

Declan narrows his eyes, and then Matthew pipes up, "Oh, did I tell you about what Lukas said the other day?" which he has to know he didn't, since Ronan finds Matthew's friends too dull to waste seconds of his life hearing about.

This time he makes no objection, just lets the words wash over him, along with the satisfaction of having struck back at Declan.

-

Adam returns to the bar a week after Ronan stops thinking of him as _Poker Face._ Ronan must be more convincing than he knows, because not only is Adam not too embarrassed to come back, he's not on a date.

"If your goal is to make your life less pathetic, drinking alone in bars is a shitty first step," Ronan says.

Adam shrugs. "I like the burgers here. And I live down the street, this is easier than making dinner."

"Yeah, nothing pathetic about that." He grabs a pint glass. "What're you drinking?"

Adam scans the taps, which haven't changed since the last time he was in here, and then flicks up to the wine list on the wall. Not that he ever orders anything but the red ale.

But something catches his eye, anyway, because he stifles a laugh, smiles with one side of his mouth.

"What's a _sexy Irish Ronan_?" Adam asks.

Ronan blanches. "Oh, for fuck's sake -- " He turns around, and sure enough, the cocktail of the day is harassing him. He smears the words off with his bare hand, picks up the chalk and writes in its place CHENG IS A DEAD MAN.

But that doesn't solve the immediate problem, which is, Adam is laughing at him, and also Adam _knows his name._

"You're not on the menu?"

" _No._ "

"All right. I'll try Cheng's Last Night on Earth." Adam pauses. "Which one is Cheng?"

"Host."

"With the -- " Adam makes a gesture that can only mean _unnecessarily big hair._

"That's him."

"Sure, I'll toast to his demise."

Ronan thinks about what would be a fitting drink for the way he feels about Cheng. Well whiskey, Baileys, lime juice. Tops the glass off with soda water and sticks an orange peel on top for _presentation._

Adam looks skeptical, but Ronan crosses his arms and dares him to back down.

He does not.

"This is -- really disgusting," Adam coughs.

"Thank you."

"Sure, that was a compliment. What else would it be?" Adam coughs again, and pushes the drink away from him. "I miss when the cocktail of the day was _beer_ , whatever happened to that?"

"I'll see if I can pull some strings."

"Oh, only if it's no trouble," Adam says, sarcasm dripping from every word.

"Nah, I know the bartender."

It's a Thursday night, decently busy and full of -- ugh -- _young people._ Ronan has a steady turnover at the bar, but there's enough room for Adam to sit there, slowly working his way through a hamburger and a pint. He brought a thick magazine with him, the kind of thing that has _journal_ or _science_ in the title, where every word is depressing or sleep-inducing or both, and he pauses frequently to scribble illegible comments in the margins.

He's busy, and Ronan is too, so he's not expecting Adam to talk to him. He wasn't expecting it the first time, and now Adam's discharged whatever kind of social debt he feels for Ronan warning him about K, or giving him a free drink, or whatever he thinks he owes Ronan for.

Except Adam does talk to him again, looks up when Ronan is chipping ice, "God, they don't have a machine to do that?" and Ronan says, "yeah, but I like stabbing shit better." And again, when he takes a break from _The Journal for Curing Insomnia_ , blinks at Ronan with bleary eyes until Ronan hears himself saying, "real page-turner, huh?" And Adam says, "riveting" in a perfect deadpan.

It's not much of a conversation, but Ronan is still glad that when Cheng comes prowling around the bar, Adam is wholly engrossed in an infographic, doesn't even look up for five minutes.

At some point Adam signs his bill and slips off without Ronan noticing.

Ronan leaves the receipt on the bar until someone else comes to take the spot.

That's when he sees the note Adam left him, next to the word "tip": _stick to beer, your cocktails suck._

-

"Ugh." Sargent collapses onto the stool in front of Ronan, the last open seat in the bar.

"What's with you?" Ronan asks, anger pickling at him faster than he can process the source of it. Sargent is obnoxious and opinionated and stubborn, and she generally does anything she can to annoy Ronan. But Sargent counts on her tips, scrapes every penny together to help her mother pay the mortgage for the residence of all eight hundred of her female relatives (and seriously, what the hell is that about, do they eat the male babies?). She doesn't _sit down_ on the clock, on a busy Friday night.

Which means -- something is wrong.

Hence: anger.

"Nothing," she snaps. "Can I just have one second of peace before you tell me to fuck off?"

"Who do you want me to punch?"

Sargent looks up, surprised. Ronan probably looks the same. Threatening to physically harm someone -- that isn't something you do for a coworker, a daily annoyance. That's something you do for, for --

Aw, crap. Sargent is his _friend._ That's fucking annoying.

Maybe there are things you can't do with a person without emerging on the other side as friends. Spray painting stink lines on a pro-gun Tea Party douchebag fifty feet above the ground must be one of those.

"Oh, my God, you _weirdo_ ," Sargent says. "I'm a civilized human being, I don't need you to punch anyone for me." And just as a new wave of anger breaks over him, omnidirectional, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out her keys, jangles the whole mess in Ronan's face -- and how many locks are there at the Sargent coven that she needs to carry around an entire mother lode of nickel in her pockets?

More important than the eight billion keys, though -- a can of mace. Hot pink. Probably sold specifically for women's self-defense.

Right at the moment, hot pink is Ronan's favorite color.

"He was all talk. If he'd touched me I'd've hit him with this."

Ronan nods his approval. "You know how to use it?"

"No, because I walk around with a weapon I don't know how to use." She rolls her eyes. "I've practiced."

"Good." He expects her to chew him out for condescending to her. She looks like she's expecting to do it, too, and then she shrugs and shoves her keys back in her pocket. "You should point him out to me anyway."

"He left already." She falls silent, the joy of imaginary violence passing, and stares off into the distance.

Ronan pours a shot of Fireball, 'accidentally' leaves it on the counter. Hides the glass when it's empty again a second later.

"You know the worst part?" she asks, abruptly.

He really doesn't. "...all of it?"

"He left a really big tip."

Ronan tries to think how it would feel to be Sargent right now. Principled, angry, righteous Sargent.

Practical, loyal, _broke_ Sargent.

She took the tip.

"Cash or card?"

She scowls at him. "What?"

"Cash or card?" Ronan asks again.

"Cash," Sargent says.

"Give it to me."

She moves slowly, frowning, but does it; pulls out a crumpled ball of bills and receipt from her apron. She hadn't gone to the register yet. She came here, first, when she was upset -- because there was a seat at the bar, and, she was tired, and, and --

\-- because he's her friend too. Fuck, this is so annoying.

The creep tipped her forty dollars. Forty dollars on a seventy dollar meal-and-drinks for two. What had he even said that needed _forty dollars_ to make it go down easier --

Ronan shoves the whole mess in his pocket and fishes out his wallet. He doesn't have forty on him, but he counts out a shit-ton of ones, does some quick math and writes on a coaster, in that painstaking handwriting he's never managed to get rid of, _IOU $27._

"Thanks for the loan," he says. "I'll pay you back, I'm good for it."

Sargent blinks. Ronan would almost think her eyes looked watery for a second, but -- it was probably just the light in here.

"I'm charging you interest," she informs him.

Ronan sighs, deeply, and then Cheng pops up, because the sound of imminent mental collapse summons him from the depths.

"Do I see money changing hands?" he asks. "Blue, my love, has this man lured you into purchasing restricted substances from him? Because if so, I'm offended you came to anyone other than yours truly for a drug hookup."

"I'm offended you assume Lynch would be the dealer," Sargent says. Whatever horrifying vulnerabilities Ronan may have glimpsed are long gone. "He was paying _me._ Women can be drug dealers, too. The future is female."

"My apologies." Cheng bows to her. "May I ask about the circumstances?"

"No," Ronan says, and Sargent answers, "Ronan broke one of my cardinal rules, I made him pay up."

"Which rule? Using masculine pronouns as the default? Throwing recyclables in the trash can?"

Sargent looks at Ronan, and then says, "chivalry," and hops off the stool to go to her next table.

Ronan only realizes when he's emptying his pockets to do laundry two weeks later (whatever, they're pants, they're not supposed to get washed) that Sargent's creepy customer had written his phone number on the receipt. The receipt that she'd turned around and given to Ronan.

He stares at it, has a hundred half-ideas, and then he groans as he puts the receipt in the pocket of his other pants.

"Hey," Ronan says at work that night -- Sargent's out at her night class. "You're good at being annoying."

Cheng puts a lip to his finger, cocks his head and walks in a half circle around Ronan, like Ronan is a famous sculpture and Cheng is trying to puzzle out an angle that no one else has ever seen him from before.

"It's fascinating," Cheng says. "Your words are insulting, and yet your tone -- it's almost as though there is a human in there, attempting to reach out -- "

Ronan pulls the receipt out and shoves it in Cheng's face. "I want to make this guy miserable."

Cheng grins, salacious. "Oh? Might these digits belong to an ex? Perhaps the one behind your obvious broken heart -- "

Yeah, no, Ronan does not want to ever have a conversation with anyone about his heart, which is not broken, Jesus Christ, and he doubly doesn't want to have a conversation about his _not broken heart_ while he's standing behind the counter of Satan's own bar and restaurant.

"This guy upset Sargent."

Cheng drops the act, immediately serious.

"Then we will make him miserable."

"I thought." Ronan rubs the back of his head. "Write the number in bathroom stalls? Really disgusting ones."

"I love the thought of going on a field trip with you to a bunch of disgusting bathrooms," Cheng says, but the flirtation is off-hand, reflexive; his brain is whirring away on the problem. "Rather old school, though. I have several ideas that would be more effective -- but why not multiple avenues of attack? And yours has that delightful personal touch. You handle that, I shall take over the new-tech approach."

He copies out the phone number on another coaster. His handwriting is all flourishes, as hard to read as if it were a mess, but hey, as long as he can tell his 3's and his 5's apart Ronan doesn't care.

And then he turns back toward the front of the restaurant.

"Wha -- " Ronan starts.

Cheng raises an eyebrow at him.

"You aren't going to bug me about who he is?" Ronan asks. "What he did?"

Cheng frowns, and Ronan realizes this is the first real distaste he's ever seen from him, that every other declaration that Ronan was _the worst_ was just for show.

"Ronan," he says. "I do know where the lines are."

-

Sargent charges hims eleven dollars and sixty-one cents ("Why not sixty-nine?" "Shut up, Cheng") interest on that twenty-seven dollar loan. Friendship is the _worst._

-

Matthew is uncharacteristically glum during lunch. He hardly touches Ronan's fries, and he keeps trailing off in the middle of sentences.

"Spit it out," Ronan says. "What's wrong?"

Matthew shakes his head. "Oh, nothing."

Ronan narrows his eyes. "This is a classy restaurant. Don't make me wrestle you into submission."

"This is a classy restaurant?"

"Classier than where I work." The kid has been having too many damn lunch meetings with Declan, if he turns his nose up at fifteen dollar entrees and no reservations. "Out with it."

Matthew chews on his bottom lip. "You don't want to know."

"So it's about the business."

Just like that, the dam bursts. Ronan is mostly impressed that Matthew lasted as long as he did.

"Declan wants me to take on more responsibility," he gushes. "I need to find a project I can spearhead, but I don't know how to do that! I don't know how to do anything. I don't even know what I would be doing if I knew how to do it. I'm not like you, Ronan, I'm not good at this stuff."

Ronan sticks a finger in Matthew's face. "First of all, take that back. I am not _good_ at running a fucking business."

"Sorry." Matthew retreats in on himself, sheepish.

Ronan sighs. The kid just looks so sad and repentant. He always was good at that. The nuns at St. Augustine's Boys School had loved him for it. And he'd never even been faking, which was the really impressive part.

He musses Matthew's hair, forceful, and gets a surprised laugh out of him.

"Declan just wants you to run one thing? Any one thing?"

"Yeah. Anything! But that's too many things, Ronan. Any thing could be -- anything! How am I supposed to pick one thing from any thing?"

"What's something Declan's been bitching about lately?"

Matthew opens his mouth.

"Something that isn't me."

Matthew shuts his mouth.

"Oh. Well. He said we had to pay a bunch of back taxes. I guess Dad wasn't great at getting all the tax stuff done right and on time." Matthew taps his fork against his teeth. "Oh, and he says that we have bad PR because art is a rich d-bag business."

Ronan snorts. He'd been the one to tell Declan that. It figures Declan only listens to Ronan when he's not around.

"Okay, so how about you fix the company PR or the taxes -- "

And then he has a horrible, dumb, insane thought.

"Oh, is that all," Matthew sighs, oblivious to Ronan's lightning bolt pain. "I don't know, maybe I should just tell Declan I can't handle a project of my own."

Goddammit, he has to go through with this.

"What you need to do," Ronan says, "is organize some kind of charity event. You'll make the company look good, and Declan can write off the expenses."

Matthew's face goes so bright that Ronan takes a second off from hating his life. Maybe this will work out after all. "Hey, yeah! That'd be perfect!" Then he thinks about it. "Oh. But -- how do I run a charity event?"

Ronan scrubs his face. Fuck. He really hopes Poker Face is better at his job than he is at dating.

"I know a guy," he says. "I can give you his number. You just have to call him and tell him you work for Lynch's Fine Art and you want to organize an event to benefit his charity, okay? He'll tell you what you need to do from there."

God bless Matthew. He doesn't question why Ronan carries around a business card for a Director of Resource Management in his wallet. Or why Ronan copies out the phone number onto a napkin instead of just giving him the card. Or why Ronan puts the card back into his wallet where it's been cozying up to St. Catherine medal for weeks now. Matthew focuses on his own problems, mumbling the script Ronan gave him under his breath, and Ronan can already tell he's going to forget to mention _how_ he got Adam's number.

Matthew is Ronan's favorite person in the entire world.

-

"There's a million recipe websites online." Ronan puts down a beer without waiting for the order. He maybe started pouring when he'd seen Adam walk into the bar. Which wasn't pathetic or anything, it was just a slow night and he needed something to do. "You could learn how to make a burger."

"I could," Adam says. "But it wouldn't be the same. And it's much less fun to belittle myself than to let you do it for me."

That's not flirtation. No one on earth would think that was. No one besides Ronan, anyway, and he's not a reliable judge of anything, an artist who doesn't create, an heir who abdicated, half-Cain half-Abel, so fucking clueless that friendship snuck up behind him and mugged him.

"Anyway, I'm celebrating," Adam continues.

And this, here, is why he didn't want to do this, mix up his family and the bar and -- the guy that comes to the bar. Because now he has two choices, listen to Adam talk about his family or not listen to Adam at all.

Fuck, that's not a real choice. Adam has that cocky little smile people get when they want to brag, and if Ronan doesn't ask then he's going to be disappointed.

"Oh?" he says, casual, like he doesn't know what Adam would be celebrating, one week after Ronan sent Matthew to him. Maybe it'll be something else. Maybe his favorite plant gave birth. Maybe he finally landed a second date.

"I just got a huge fundraising event set up with a new sponsor." Ronan's life sucks. "Local business, but they own a bunch of auction houses and art galleries around the country. Which I honestly didn't know you could make money doing, but apparently you can, serious money."

Ronan knows how you make money off art, _private financing, private sales, hooking up the kind of people who don't want their dealings to be public with the kind of people who meet their needs,_ but he's not going to say any of that.

Instead: "They sound like Bond villains. I hope you're committed to that not caring if you're evil thing."

"There might actually be something sketchy going on," Adam says. "The founder passed away last year and I guess there was some kind of power struggle between his sons? No one knows exactly what happened, but it's a topic of great speculation among the ranks."

Ronan regrets all of his decisions, all over again. "Why the fuck does everyone have to gossip so much?"

That's too strong of a reaction, and he figures Adam will either be suspicious or be put off by it.

But instead Adam grins, lazily. "You may not have noticed this, but being alive is mostly very boring."

"And that's how you deal with it, you just stick your nose in other people's business?"

"No, not me personally, but then I've been told that I'm not much fun -- I've been told that twice in this very restaurant, actually -- so I'm probably not the right person to ask."

Like any of the losers Adam ever brought here have any right to say that _he's_ not fun, but that's an entire other topic of conversation that Ronan doesn't want to think about.

"So how does any of this raise money for you," Ronan asks, "are you gonna break into the Louvre?" and that gets them talking more about charity benefits and event planning and less about Ronan's disaster of a life.

-

Ronan is frequently late to things. He's late because he doesn't care enough to pay attention to what time it is; he's late because he wants to piss off whoever's waiting for him; he's late because whatever he was doing at the time is more important than wherever he's going.

He's never late on Sunday.

And hence a recurring problem: Ronan is never late on Sunday, and Declan is never late ever, and Matthew is a charming Muppet of a boy who careens wildly from one moment to the next without the slightest idea of what time it is.

"Sorry, sorry," Matthew whispers -- he might as well have shouted, the way he's hissing his esses. He flicks holy water in Ronan's eyes, crossing himself repeatedly and haphazardly like that makes up for dashing into mass halfway through the second reading, leaving the space between his brothers a chilly no-man's land.

"Sit down and shut up, Christ," Ronan whispers back at him -- not quiet enough, because Declan reaches over and slaps him on the back of the head.

"Bless you," Ronan says through gritted teeth, confident that Declan will hear it as the _go to hell_ it really is.

Declan points his eyes toward the heavens. "Mary, mother of God, pray for me."

There's a pointed cough from the pew behind them -- like you can judge, Mrs. Hernandez, your daughter's had two kids out of wedlock and your son is butt-ugly.

Ronan shuts his eyes through the rest of the service, tries to feel like a _brother._ He feels empty.

-

If Ronan were the kind of person who looked on the bright side, who found silver linings in storm clouds, he would say that at least Tuesday Night Trivia made Friday and Saturday nights at the bar look better by comparison. That the cramped restaurant, the loud argumentative drunks, the shitty mic system blaring Cheng's voice, all taught him to count his blessings.

Ronan has never understood why he's only supposed to hate one thing at a time. He can hate weekends _and_ Tuesdays. He can hate every damn night of the week. Most weeks, he does.

So if he feels -- a jolt, or a shock, whatever -- when he finishes filling up a tray of beers for a frazzled waitress who doesn't even have the decency to flip him off like Sargent would have, and looks up to see Adam standing at the end of the bar, vaguely shell-shocked -- if he feels anything, it's just because Tuesday Night Trivia is slowly killing him. He just had to listen to Cheng say, louder than life, "Céline Dion's seminal classic 'My Heart Will Go On'," so now he has those words burned into his brain for the rest of his life.

He leans over the bar, close enough to hear Adam say, "What the hell."

"Trivia Night."

" _Why?_ "

Ronan shrugs. "It's good for business? Fuck if I know, I'd rather have no customers."

"I can't imagine why your managers wouldn't go for that." He looks at the nearest team, a dozen people with the _hilariously original_ name of Trivia Newton John. They're crowded into a space of about three square feet, which is a pretty typical seating arrangement at the moment. "Should I even bother ordering or should I leave while I still have my hearing?"

Ronan kicks his stool out from behind the bar. "Sit," and he goes and puts in an order for a burger with a note to bump it to the top of the queue.

"Bobby Bowden," Adam says, when Ronan comes back with his beer.

"No, _Ronan._ "

Adam rolls his eyes. "FSU coach. It's the answer to the question," and sure enough, Cheng says, "Bobby Bowden."

Ronan shoots Adam a look of deep betrayal. "What the hell. Don't come into my bar and quote sports trivia at me like a straight guy."

"Sorry. If I could flip a switch and forget everything I was forced to learn about college football -- actually, I wouldn't, because sports are the great American social lubricant and I need all the help I can get. But I'd regret not doing it."

"You and your necessary evils. In my bar, you don't know shit about sports, got it?"

Adam doesn't look in the least cowed. "But then how am I supposed to win trivia night?"

Ronan points a finger up at the speaker, waits a second until Cheng says "and that charming little animal is the appropriately named blobfish."

"You want to win this?"

"A win is a win, right?"

" _No._ "

Adam laughs -- low, so Ronan can barely make it out over the hubbub of teams totaling up their scores. It's more vision than sound, just a tiny lift and fall of his shoulders, the way his eyes crinkle up.

"Fine. No sports. What am I allowed to know?"

"Nothing." Shit, he really can't ignore that jackass at the other end of the bar trying to flag him down any longer. "You're in the penalty box," he says as he walks off to do his stupid job.

"That's hockey, not football!" Adam shouts after him.

Ronan flips him off.

That time he can hear Adam's laugh just fine, even from halfway down the bar.

Ronan actually knows the answer to the final question of the night -- Degas, it's obviously Degas; horses and ballerinas, are you fucking kidding, Cheng might as well give the points away -- but he keeps that to himself. Adam has started in on a snarky rundown of all the team names, and there's no point in derailing him. Especially not if it would just raise questions like _why do you get to know things and I don't,_ or, _how do you know so much about French impressionists anyway._

-

Ronan knows he's hit a low point when he goes to the bar on his night off.

It's just -- it's itching under his skin, the feeling of having nothing to do. Ronan is a creature of action; he's never been at a loss for what to do, he's only ever wanted for time. Time to bring each clamoring spark of painting in his mind to life. Time to drive out of the city, find a poorly lit highway to race down. Time to wander the halls of his parents' house, puzzle over every piece of artwork on display, _why this one, why does it speak to Dad, why does it speak to me._ Time to go kidnap Matthew from his work or his studies, which he was always more than ready to abandon. Time, even, to go pick a fight with Declan, for the sheer joy of fighting, without the weight of knowing that one of these blows would be the one that broke them.

But none of those are real, possible choices. He can't even find the place inside of him that used to have those impulses. The only question is whether they're walled up or washed away for good.

Ronan growls, throws a bone-dry paintbrush down to the floor, and drives all the way to the bar before he thinks about where he's going.

He snatches the keys out of the ignition. He _had_ been looking for a way to kill time, and if anyone was good at killing time...

Cheng almost falls over when Ronan walks in the door. Ronan assumes it's from surprise, but after a meaningful eye-flick on Cheng's part he remembers he hadn't changed out of his painting clothes. His beat up, ripped up, paint-splattered old jeans and tank. Which means Cheng is having some kind of _thug-with-hidden-depths_ moment.

Ronan flips him the finger. "Paint a picture, it'll last longer."

"I know better than to try to improve on a masterpiece." Ronan rolls his eyes. "Are you here to get the schedule for next week, or -- "

"Nah, need some grub."

Cheng walks him to the best table in the restaurant. Ronan stops. "Fuck no, what's wrong with you?"

"Perhaps I am trying to elevate the working man." Ronan doesn't want to get into everything that's wrong with that statement, and not only because he's pretty sure Sargent would slit his throat if she found out he's one of the idle rich -- she wouldn't be able to help herself, and he wouldn't blame her, but he likes his throat how it is.

Ronan walks on, to the wobbly table on the very edge of what should be Sargent's territory for the night. Kicks his feet up on the chair opposite him. "Get me something to drink."

"One cocktail of the day." Cheng's eyes sparkle dangerously. "Coming right up."

The first drink Cheng brings him is a sex on the beach. He sets it down on the table with a flourish and then steps back, impish smile and watchful eyes, like he doesn't think Ronan is going to drink it. Like vodka isn't vodka just because it's orange.

Ronan downs half of it in one gulp.

Cheng brings him other drinks, more and more ridiculous concoctions in ever-brighter colors, a kaleidoscope of excess. Ronan orders a shit-ton of appetizers, kabobs and chicken tenders and those disgusting jalapeno things that Sargent likes, and pretends that he's not going to let her eat any of them when she comes by to swipe them off the table.

It's a weeknight and past the dinner rush anyway, but Cheng and Sargent are pushing it when they drag another chair over and sit at his table next to him. He thinks about pointing that out, and then he thinks that he doesn't care. He feels mild. It's quiet, inside his own head.

That's what he gets for letting Cheng get him drunk.

"Gimme your arm," Sargent demands.

Ronan puts his elbow on the table; giving her his arm, but knocking a plate over the edge of the table to do it.

She scowls at him and lets Cheng dive to the rescue, even though she's closer.

"Don't move." She puts an arm around his bicep.

"If you're trying to arm wrestle, you're doing it wrong."

"Psh, like I want to hold your hand." She pulls a sticker out of her pocket and peels clear plastic off the front of it with her teeth. No, not a sticker; a temporary tattoo.

"What did I do to make you think I was a second-grader?" Ronan asks.

"You're drinking like one, aren't you?" Sargent challenges, like The Fireball Queen gets to judge his alcohol intake. She sticks the tattoo to his skin without giving him a chance to squirm away. Not that he would have, but he might have let her think he would. She dips a napkin in his glass of water and presses it against his arm.

Cheng holds out a hand, shows Ronan the cartoon elephant on the inside of his wrist. "Now we shall all have one."

"Well, this is so precious I might die," Ronan says. "Are we BFFs now?"

"Forever is a long time to be stuck with you." Sargent dabs as his arm again.

"This is even less like work than what you normally do. Even our shitty management might notice."

"Management is useless." Sargent fears nothing. 

"I like that about them," Cheng says . "If they did their job than they would put a stop to my innovations like cocktail of the day and employee morale boosters."

"And here I didn't think anything could make me wish for more authority."

"You're so full of shit, Lynch," Sargent says, fond and absolutely right. Ronan doesn't mind. At least, tonight, he's full of something.

-

For how little he uses his phone, Ronan manages to lose it an awful lot.

Matthew figures the two are related -- _because_ Ronan doesn't use it, he doesn't notice that it's not on him, so he walks away and leaves it places. He offered to buy Ronan a phone chain -- "like a wallet chain! but for a phone!" -- and Declan had made a snide comment about how Ronan would then have to contrive to lose the chain, too. Declan always had thought Ronan lost his phone on purpose, because there isn't any sin Declan doesn't assume Ronan is guilty of, but he really doesn't do it on purpose. If he did, he wouldn't go to the trouble of finding it again.

And yeah, when he realizes he hasn't seen his phone in a couple of days, it's tempting to leave it at that. But Matthew's always texting him dumb bullshit, is probably sad that Ronan hasn't responded. And if he leaves it out there some opportunist might find it and make some money off it. Ronan doesn't want to do anyone a good turn.

So he thinks back to when the last time he saw it was, which is an exhausting and unproductive bit of mental aerobics until he spots his arm in the mirror. There's most of a cartoon panda lingering on his bicep, less deteriorated than he'd have expected after three days.

He's not good at keeping the day schedule in mind -- doesn't need to be, he works nights -- so he doesn't know Cheng is going to be there until he walks into the restaurant and sees him. He stops for a second, debates if he feels human enough to have a conversation or if he needs to sneak out.

And then he looks past Cheng and sees _Declan_ of all goddamn people sitting at the table in front of him. Saying something and smiling his polite businessman smile, his CEO smile, and Cheng is talking back to him. Ronan knows what Cheng looks like when he's hanging out; he's not telling Declan the daily specials or that his waiter will be right with him. They're having a conversation, and if some part of Ronan realizes that is a stupid thing to become enraged over, it's washed out by the hideous mixture of territorial loathing that sweeps over him: _this is a shitty fucking place but it's my shitty fucking place -- _

Cheng looks up. And if there was any doubt that any of this was an accident, it vanishes when he falls completely still. Prey reaction, freezing to hide from danger.

He knows _exactly_ who he's talking to, and _exactly_ how Ronan feels about it.

Ronan turns around and leaves. He never does get his phone back.

-

The last fucking thing Ronan wants to do after the Brunch of Betrayal is go to the Children's Care Alliance fundraiser. Except that Matthew has come and visited him to stress and/or rave and/or panic about it twice a day every day for the last week, and it turns out the actual last fucking thing Ronan wants to do is skip out on Matthew when Matthew needs him, or at least needs a fistful of Valium.

Besides. Adam is going to be there.

So Ronan forces himself into a suit and goes, even though Adam is going to be there, and what the hell is he _doing._

He lurks around the edges, trying to give off _supportive brother_ vibes without being seen by anyone. He avoids Declan. He doesn't want to avoid Matthew, but every time he spots Matthew he's surrounded by people. He snacks and sips wine and stares gloomily at the artwork on display. Declan always did think tall ships and crumbling architecture was the height of art.

" -- it isn't that poverty causes abuse," he hears from around the corner, and freezes in place, blood turned to ice. "You see abuse on all income levels. But poverty exacerbates a lot of the problems that kids face in abusive households. That's why the Alliance targets both child abuse and childhood poverty -- "

Ronan doesn't realize that he's drifted into view until Adam stops talking. _Idiot_ , but God loves a fool, maybe, because Declan is across the hall, up on the stage (visible -- why help the meek if you don't get to inherit the earth with them?) and he doesn't know where Matthew is, but he can hear him saying, loudly, "it's okay, I got it!" and then a crash that indicates that whatever it was, he did not, in fact, have it.

Which means no one who knows him is there to witness the way that Adam is staring at him. The way he is staring at Adam.

Adam recovers first. "I'd be happy to talk to you further, let me give you my card," and by the time he's given his card to the gray-haired couple and watched them toddle off, Ronan's pulled himself together enough to join him.

"So," Adam says. "Should I add art aficionado to you resume?"

"Depends. What else do you have on there?"

"Let's see." Adam taps a finger on his chin, like he's deep in thought, but he's quick to answer. "Beautiful penmanship. Filthy mouth. Either a sadist or the worst mixologist of all time."

Ronan turns up the corner of his mouth. "I know a little bit about art."

"Really."

"Yeah." He points to the painting in front of them, seascape. "That color is blue."

Adam smiles and looks down, like he's trying to hide his smile. "Okay, now tell me what you really know about art."

"Honestly? This representational shit's all boring." He remembers, helpfully, that Adam planned this event. "No offense."

"I spend most of my time ingratiating myself with rich people," Adam says. "It's ruined whatever love I might have otherwise had for classical art."

The words jump into Ronan's mind, fully formed: _there's this gallery I love on the east side._

It could be that easy. He could say that, and Adam would say yes. The way that he looked when he saw Ronan, the way he's sneaking glances at Ronan in his suit, the fact that he _gave Ronan his number_ the very first night they talked, and maybe Cheng had been right about that, except _fuck Cheng._

If Ronan just says it -- _I could show you --_

He says, "Listen," and Adam tilts his head, like he's listening, like he's already saying yes.

And then.

"Ronan, what a surprise." It's the second a dream turns into a nightmare, it's two vehicles colliding, it's walking into his bar and seeing fucking Cheng gossiping with his useless brother all over again. Here comes Declan Goddamn Lynch. "I didn't think you'd make it."

Ronan tenses all over. His eyes flick around the room, looking for an exit route. This would have to happen in a fucking _art gallery_ and not an open space like a park or an active war zone. "I did."

"Matthew must be pleased."

"Haven't seen him yet." He takes a step back. Maybe he can still get out of this with no harm done, except that Adam is frowning, small and thoughtful, and he needs to _go, now._ "I'll go find him."

And that would have been it, he would have been fucking _fine_ , except that Declan doesn't know how to turn off the CEO shit. Even when he's reaching out and grabbing Ronan's elbow in a way that Ronan can't easily break out of. Even then, Declan is networking, schmoozing, cataloging people by usefulness.

So he looks at Adam, all chummy business smile, and says, "Sorry to interrupt, Parrish. Do you mind if I borrow my brother for a minute?"

And Adam, still frowning, says, "I think that's up to Ronan."

Ronan lets Declan pull him away, lets Declan talk to him, "I thought someone had spiked my drink when I saw you were actually here, and looking presentable. Not that I'm complaining about your taking an interest in the business, though it does figure that you would find an uncooperative way to cooperate -- "

They round a corner, out of sight of the gallery at large, and Ronan hits Declan with the heel of his hand, _hard_ against his sternum.

Declan flinches, but isn't surprised enough to drop his hold on Ronan's elbow.

"I'm not here for the business," Ronan says, "and I'm definitely not here for you."

"Trust me, I know."

"Do you? Then why the hell are you still trying? What do I have to do to get you to _leave me alone_?"

"Nothing," Declan snaps. "There is literally nothing, so you might as well stop using me as your emotional punching bag."

"Your martyr fantasy is crap and you know it. Like I'm beating up on you? You're too selfish to just let someone walk all over you."

"Oh, grow up, Ronan, it's always been this way. I bleed myself dry for the family and get spit on in return." He sneers. "You always did take after dad."

Ronan goes sick to his stomach. He can't even speak, not even to say go to hell.

Their father is dead, and this is how Declan talks about him.

Declan lets go of his arm.

Ronan walks off. There's a door not far away, a hallway heading deeper into the building rather than an exit. Doesn't matter. He needs to go.

He hears the door shut behind him, then open again. Footsteps; someone coming after him.

" _Fuck off_."

But it's not Declan.

Adam comes to a dead stop, ten feet away. Takes a half step back. Out of fear, Ronan thinks, feeling rabid.

"If you want me to leave, I will," Adam says, voice low. "I just -- I wanted to know if you were okay."

He's not afraid, he's trying to _give Ronan space._ Ronan, who has no place left he can go, every stupid part of his life crashing into each other with a scream like metal hitting metal.

He laughs. It's an ugly sound. "Me? I'm great. Just fine."

Adam is not convinced. "I know that was a bad scene back there -- "

"What do you know about it?"

He watches Ronan. Weighs his words carefully.

Eventually he says, "I had exactly the kind of childhood you'd think would make someone do what I do." His chin comes up, righteous fury, " _don't_ apologize."

"Wasn't gonna," Ronan mutters. _Fuck_ isn't an apology.

He keeps glaring, like he's waiting for Ronan to say something else, then he cools off, a deliberate action, taking down anger and putting it away for later. "I know what it looks like when something's wrong, okay?"

"So you're not an idiot. Good for you."

"I don't expect you to explain your life to me," Adam says. "I just hope you can explain it to yourself."

Of course Ronan can explain his life. His parents are dead and he'd give anything to have them back. It's the one thing he wants and he can't have it, and meanwhile Declan _has_ the one thing that he's always wanted and all he does is bitch and moan about how Ronan is ruining it.

That's the explanation. That's the truth.

That's not sitting well inside of Ronan.

Adam must take his silence for encouragement, or at least permission. "I know what it's like to try to box shit up and pretend it doesn't matter, like you can keep it separate from your real life. It doesn't work."

"So what does work," Ronan says, "buy a bunch of plants and suck up to rich people and hope no one notices how desperate you are to be loved?"

Adam takes another half-step back.

How had he ever thought that Adam's face was unreadable? Anger is radiating out of him, signaling loud and clear that he's got something ready to fly, some insult of his own.

Ronan wants to hear it. He bets it's good. He bets it'll hurt like hell.

Adam says, "take care of yourself, Ronan," and turns and walks away.

-

Ronan leaves the gallery bloodthirsty, puts a hundred miles on his car trying to wear down that hunger if by no other means than pure physical exhaustion.

It doesn't work. It's like all the feelings he should have been feeling all along were draining out of him and now the flow's reversed, toxic emotional sewage spraying all over him.

He drives to the restaurant. There's no chance of running into Adam there now. Declan might be stupid enough or stubborn enough to come look for him, though he'll be reflecting in the glow of other people's decency for a few more hours yet.

He stands in the alley behind the restaurant anyway. Waits. It isn't cold at night, when you're carrying your own fusion reactor of anger under your skin, endlessly burning and endlessly renewable. He does get tired of the crappy flickering street lamp, though. No rocks around, but he shoves open the lid of the dumpster and finds an empty bottle of Glenfiddich. Tossed out with the trash, not recycled, and Sargent would hate that --

He chucks the bottle at the street lamp.

He misses, which only makes him madder. Makes him madder _again_ , when he hears a little voice lecturing him about broken glass and public spaces, and he tosses a bottle of Johnny Walker straight at the ground just to shut it up.

It's three more bottles before he finally hits the light and gets some peaceful darkness to lurk in.

The door to the restaurant doesn't open the whole time he's breaking shit. Everyone always puts off taking out the trash, leaves that for whatever suckers have to close. And most of the employees don't like to exit out the back if they don't have to. Most of them don't ride derpy little electric bicycles that they leave chained to the bike rack. Most of them don't feel nostalgic about the graffiti. All of them think the alley is creepy as fuck.

The door opens, a little after ten, and Ronan steps out of the shadows and grabs Cheng by the arm.

Cheng jumps a mile. Ronan had got right up in his face, close enough to feel the air leaving Cheng's mouth when he yelps.

"What. The. Crap. Ronan." He puts a hand over his heart. "You _scared_ me."

"Go bitch to Declan about it."

Cheng glares at him. "No. I reject this premise, utterly. You are not excused for scaring the hell out of me because I spoke to your brother."

"Like hell. You went behind my back."

Cheng doesn't move a muscle. Funny; Ronan's had arguments with him about how to fold napkins where Cheng threw his arms up over his head and stamped around. Now, when it counts, he's still as water, all watchful eyes and potential energy.

"By _serving a customer_?"

"Don't fucking lie to me."

"Are you going to be reasonable if I tell you the truth?"

Ronan exhales, hard. "Don't play games. You owe me."

"Owe you? No, my friend, I don't," Cheng says. "In all of the months we have known each other, I have given you my time and my trust and my honest opinions, and you have given me nothing. I invited you into my most sacred activity. And I only know your last name because Blue once saw a paycheck in the manager's office that you were delinquent in picking up. Ronan Lynch, I owe you nothing."

"Right. And that's why you cozied up to Declan, is it? Because I hadn't told you anything and you were that fucking nosy?"

Cheng make a noise like a kettle screaming. Pure frustration, boiling over, escaping the only way it can.

"I befriended your brother because he is very sad and very lonely and it was in my power to help him just by speaking to him for a few minutes whenever he came into the restaurant."

"Sad? Lonely? Jesus, you fell for his act, didn't you. Did he tell you about how his dad didn't love him enough?"

"No, that reticence of yours is a family trait."

"So what, Sargent's psychic mom hooked you up?"

"I recognized his sadness like I would recognize my own face," Cheng says. "You see, my father hasn't lived with my mother for fifteen years. He's afraid of her. He calls her the madwoman -- not in front of company, but to the rest of the family. He has decided that she is mad because she believes in things that he does not. Ghosts. Demonic possession. Me."

"Why the fuck is everyone telling me their goddamn deep dark secrets?" Ronan snarls. "I _don't want to know._ "

"Perhaps we want you to know." Cheng steps up, counter invasion of Ronan's space. "You are so concerned with people taking knowledge from you, with the idea that anyone holding knowledge is storing it to use against you. You cannot even imagine anyone would ever want to _share_ themselves."

"Shut up."

"Why? You came and attacked me and demanded answers. Why would you do that unless you wanted to hear them? Could it be because _you_ had anything to say to _me_?"

Ronan steps back. Looks down at Cheng -- who lacks the height and weight advantage in a fight, who is an avowed pacifist, who once got choked up recounting the plot of the Katherine Heigl rom-com _27 Dresses_.

Ronan goes.

-

"You don't have to do all this shit just because Declan wants you to."

Matthew blinks at Ronan. "What shit?"

Ronan reaches up and rips the Bluetooth earpiece out of Matthew's ear. Holds it up to his face, meaningfully.

"Hey, I was wondering where that was." Matthew takes it back from him.

"Jesus fucking Christ." Ronan shoves his hands back in his pockets and walks on ahead of Matthew, fast and to nowhere in particular. He'd hung out in front of Matthew's apartment building until the kid had come home for the evening. Out of all of the things that are horrible about Matthew working at the nauseatingly tasteful downtown headquarters of Lynch's, the fact that Ronan couldn't even show up to kidnap him on a workday without risking a run-in with Declan is the worst. Fuck, he needs a drink. If only Matthew didn't live in Hipsterville where all of the bars are locally-sourced and cruelty-free. Ronan could go for a little cruelty with his liquor.

"No, seriously." Matthew jogs to keep up. "What shit?"

"What do you mean, what shit. You really like working for him?"

Matthew shrugs. "Sure, why not? Art is cool."

"Art is cool. What about all of the rest of the crap? The sucking up and judging people. For fuck's sake, you're wearing a suit."

"I like suits," Matthew says. "They make me feel cool. Like James Bond, or those lawyers on TV. What's that show called?" He thinks it over, deeply, and then beams. "Suits!"

"You could just be a lawyer."

"No, I don't think I could, I don't really like arguing with people. Declan likes arguing with people." Ronan snorts. "He'd make a good lawyer."

"Then he should have just _done that._ Would've saved us all a lot of trouble."

Matthew frowns. It's upsetting. Sargent talks a big game about all people having equal rights, equal dignity, blah blah blah. Ronan knows that's pure shit. Some people are just meant to be happy, and Matthew is one of them.

"But then who'd be CEO?" he asks.

"Who cares?" Ronan asks. "The whole business could die."

"You don't really want that."

"Sure I do."

"You wouldn't be sad?" Matthew asks. "If Lynch's went out of business?"

Ronan stares ahead of them. It's a business. It's not a living thing, it's nothing, it's dozens of people wasting their lives pushing overvalued crap to people who don't appreciate it anyway.

"Mom and Dad dying was sad," he says. "This is just -- bullshit. It doesn't matter."

Matthew fiddles with his Bluetooth. "It matters to me."

Ronan _tsch_ s. "Just because Declan _made_ you care about it."

"No, he didn't," Matthew says. "Declan said, anything in the world I wanted to do, he'd make sure I could do it. After the funeral, when you were -- "

Ronan stops.

Matthew stops, too. For a moment Ronan thinks that he's going to drop it.

Instead, he makes a fist around his overpriced earpiece.

"You were in the hospital," Matthew says. "And Declan visited me, and he said, it's just us now, and it's my job to take care of the family. And he said, anything you want to do, I'll make it happen. And I wanted to do this. Maybe it's dumb d-bag stuff, selling art to rich people, but -- it's what our family does. Mom loved the business too, you know. Mom liked things that were beautiful. Mom wouldn't have wanted it to go out of business because none of us _cared._ "

Ronan says, "I'm sick to death of caring."

"Ronan," Matthew says. "It doesn't work like that. No one's ever died from caring."

God bless his little brother. Some people were made to be happy. Some people will never understand, that no one has ever died from anything else.

-

The clock on the wall doesn't work.

The clock on the wall hasn't worked in years, hasn't worked for longer than it's been on that wall. Some cog or spring or delicate piece of its guts had broken, brought the whole thing to a halt. Ronan liked it, because it was quiet and beautiful and broken inside where it didn't show, and also because it didn't mock him by telling him what time it was when he couldn't sleep. He'd moved it from bedroom to bedroom, from his parents' house to his dorm to each shitty apartment he'd lived in since then.

Tonight, though, he kind of wishes he knew what time it was. He never had retrieved his phone. He can't tell if the orange light peeking through the blinds is a streetlamp or the approach of dawn.

He sits up in bed and turns on a lamp. Stares at the wall -- at the stupid broken clock, at the dusty easel propped up in the corner, at the unframed canvas of stargazer lilies, one of Aurora's paintings. His mother had always been more passionate than talented, as an artist. She'd known that and she'd kept doing it anyway, teased her husband and her children for their fondness for her work.

"I know it's not great art," she'd told Ronan when she'd given him the lilies to take with him to college. Because he'd hated college before he'd even started, hated _going away_ to a place where no one was going to know him. "But it brings me joy. And I want you to have more joy in your life."

Ronan gets out of bed and grabs a can of white paint out of the closet. Swirls it around before cracking the lid off. The paint's still good.

He throws it at the wall, splashes white over the clock, the easel, his mother's cheerful lilies. It _splats_ in a solid, satisfying way.

Trickles of paint start to run down the wall, and Ronan grabs a paintbrush before he can think, swipes here and sweeps there and runs his whole palm along the wall to carve out the pattern he can see taking shape. It looks like a hot pink can of mace, like whiskey and curdled milk, like a cartoon elephant, like tall ships, like vehicles crashing into each other and tearing each other apart. It looks like bleeding, and bleeding, and never running dry.

-

"Get in the car."

Cheng walks up to the open window, but doesn't open the door. "If you are going to murder me, I demand one last cigarette."

Ronan scowls at him. "You don't smoke."

"Only after sex," and Cheng fucking winks at him.

"Just get in the damn car."

He lingers, eyes steady on Ronan's.

Ronan looks away first.

Cheng plops into the passenger seat. Ronan pulls away from the restaurant before he's buckled his seat belt, driving too fast and not fast enough.

"So," Cheng says, "are we going shopping, loser?"

"I don't care how gay you are, that movie is a thousand years old, get over it."

It's late, and you can make pretty good time on the residential roads, especially if you don't stop for red lights. He only has to sit through three pop songs before they get where they're going.

Cheng doesn't have any qualms about parking around back of some stranger's house, but he hesitates when Ronan starts climbing the tree.

Right. Heights.

"Come on," Ronan whispers down, "before someone sees you and calls the cops."

Cheng climbs up after him, mouth pushed into a tight line, and Ronan tugs on the window. It opens a tiny crack, just enough for him to push the latch open with a lock pick. It's been years since he had to do this, but some things you don't forget. He never really stopped being eleven years old, when the insomnia got bad for the first time, when he just needed to get out and _go_ somewhere and he'd snuck out because it would've upset his mom to know that he wasn't sleeping.

"Vandalism to burglary is quite a leap," Cheng says, voice so low Ronan can barely hear him.

"We're not going to steal anything." He slips through the window and Cheng follows behind him.

They don't make it more than ten feet down the musty hallway before Cheng stops.

Ronan turns around, finds him looking square at the painting on the wall -- then turning, sharp, to the one next to it, and back to the one they'd passed already.

"This is yours," Cheng says.

He's got a better eye than Ronan gives him credit for, if he can tell that much just from having seen his graffiti. Though the context probably helped.

"Yeah."

"You painted these."

"Yeah."

"And then you -- gave them to -- " He stops. "Where are we right now?"

Ronan runs a hand over his head. "My parents' house."

He's braced for a million annoying questions, but all he gets is:

"Why could we not have used the _front door_?"

He grins. "Not as much fun."

Cheng sighs for an entire -- Ronan counts -- six seconds. Which is when Ronan knows he's forgiven.

They walk downstairs and poke around the kitchen. Ronan has half an idea he'd make something, but there's not much to work with. There's nothing perishable anywhere to be seen. His mother loved fresh fruit, fresh dairy, had kept vases of flowers in every room. Those are all gone, and it feels like Declan's hand at work, thoughtful and necessary and brutally unsentimental. Ronan wonders if Declan did it himself, dug through the refrigerator and stalked the halls with a trash bag, or if he'd arranged for someone else to to it. Wonders whether he'd done it before the reading of the will, or after, when they all knew that the house had been left to Ronan and Ronan alone.

"I take it the master and mistress of the house are absent," Cheng says.

Ronan says, "they're dead."

He almost adds, _don't apologize_ , but he thinks he could handle that, if he had to.

Instead Cheng looks at him, endlessly.

"I don't have any words."

Ronan clears his throat. "'Bummer' works."

"Ah," Cheng says. "Of course, so eloquent. _Bummer._ "

"Exactly," and Ronan makes them hot cocoa out of a box, thin and shitty and flavorless, while Cheng speculates about where in the house teenage Ronan would have hidden his porn stash.

-

Declan lives in a classy condo in a high rise that was built five years ago, literally and metaphorically as far away from their parents' stately Victorian house as he could get and still be in the same city. There's a doorman at the entrance, but it's not like Ronan's never snuck past one of those before, and he's up the elevator in no time.

Declan lets him in when he knocks. Declan will always let him in when he knocks, just like Ronan will always show up on time on Sundays. They're going to orbit each other their whole lives, clawing and biting until one of them finally bleeds out. And then they'll probably end up in the same circle of hell, just for kicks.

"Apparently you're sad and lonely."

Declan runs a hand through his hair. Their father does the same thing in Ronan's memories; in older ones, faded away to little more than a feeling, he's going over papers while Ronan peers through the door into his office, spying when he's supposed to be asleep. In later memories, he's arguing on the phone, _I don't care if he likes it, it's not his company, is it?_ and Ronan loves the way he sounds, bold and bravado and backing down for nothing.

Declan doesn't know how to back down any more than Ronan does, but Jesus, he just sounds tired. "Congratulations, you found my deep dark secret. It makes me sad that my brother hates my guts."

Ronan says, "I didn't know."

"You didn't know," he repeats.

Ronan stares at the walls. There's not a shred of art anywhere in the condo, unless you count the framed Pink Floyd poster, souvenir from a concert that happened before either of them were born. The rest of the decoration is all photographs, shots that Declan took with his own hands. He's no Ansel Adams, but then, that's not the point.

"I didn't know any of it really hurt you. Me or -- the other stuff," and he knows they can both hear their father's name.

Declan stares at him. Then, abruptly, laughs.

"Christ, Ronan, if this is you not even trying I'd hate to think what you'd do to me on purpose."

"Probably about the same," Ronan says. "I don't know that I could get much worse."

"Well, that's something."

Declan falls silent. It's awkward, but this much, at least, Ronan had an idea how to handle.

Everything that happens _after_ tonight -- fuck, he has no idea. But for _now_ \--

"We should get drunk." Ronan pulls the tequila out of the bag he smuggled in.

"That's a bad idea." Declan reaches for the booze, uncaps it and pulls right from the handle. "Fuck, that's bad tequila."

"Only the cheapest for my brother."

"Little shit." Declan pushes the bottle on him, so Ronan takes a swig.

They get a few shots in, fast, and when Ronan feels it starting to hit him he says, "I can't believe you _spied on me._ "

Declan snorts.

"Seriously, that was some fucked up Machiavelli shit. Like I was going to wake up with a horse's head in my head -- "

"That's the fucking _Godfather_ , not The Prince. Stop mixing metaphors."

"Metaphors were made to be mixed."

Declan takes a long pull from the bottle. "He wasn't even a _good_ spy," he says, grudgingly. "He'd tell me, 'oh, Ronan said this funny thing to a mean customer,' 'Ronan can do that trick where he shoots a pint glass all the way down the bar.' I don't know if he just didn't want to tell me anything real or if he didn't know anything real." His face goes melancholy. "I don't know if anyone really knows you."

Ronan steals back the tequila. "You do. S'why I can't stand you."

"Yeah. I know you, and I don't know a thing about you."

Ronan pushes the bottle against his elbow. "You know where I work."

Declan grimaces.

"I don't know what to tell you. What do you even want to know? You know the important stuff."

"I don't know," Declan says. "Just -- stuff. How's your art going?"

Ronan draws a circle on the table in front of him, smears around the condensation that's trickled off the tequila. "Haven't painted anything since the car crash. Unless you count graffiti."

Declan sighs.

"'Cause I've done a lot of graffiti."

"Great." Declan falls silent for a moment. "You seeing anyone?"

Ronan stops drawing.

"Nah. Thought there was a guy but -- I fucked that up pretty good."

Declan makes a noise, non-committal. Ronan wants to ignore it, wants to not scour it for meaning, but tequila doesn't actually wash away the habits of a lifetime. He can't stop from flinching at Declan's judgment. And Declan can't stop judging him, even though he's trying not to, just as hard as Ronan is trying not to flinch.

"Are you keeping yourself out of the hospital?" and there it is, the one question that Ronan owes him an answer to.

Ronan doesn't actually remember leaving the wake, doesn't remember smashing his hand through a window, but he remembers that Declan was the one who found him. He remembers Declan calling the ambulance.

"Yeah," he says. "I don't do that shit. Just -- the one time."

Declan exhales.

"And you really like working at a bar?"

Ronan shrugs. "I like some of the people. Cheng's cool." Too cool; _I do know where the lines are._ "I think he knew what he was doing, not telling you anything that would piss me off."

"Good job not getting pissed off."

"Go fuck yourself," Ronan says, without any heat to it. "It's -- I don't know, it's something to do. It gets bad in my head, when I have too much time."

"Yeah," Declan says. "Yeah, I know what that's like," and that's the moment that Ronan keeps with him, through the hangover and surly breakfast and all of the uncertainties of a future where they don't just get to kill each other.

-

Ronan assumes he's fired -- you generally get fired, when you skip a half a dozen shifts in a row -- until he runs into Sargent at the mall, leaving Hot Topic. And he was absolutely going to make fun of her for shopping at Hot Topic, except the instant she saw him her face went _terrifying_ and she stalked up to him and smacked him on the chest so hard that it took him a lifetime to realize that she'd had a phone in her hand when she did it. _His_ phone.

"Whoever the hell _Matthew_ is, you need to tell him to chill. Out. With the texting," Sargent fumes. "This isn't even about me or how much I hate seeing your stupid phone light up every three seconds. This is just -- for the greater good. For the well-being of the universe. For the reputation of our entire generation. I want to believe there is not anyone alive who texts _this much._ "

"Have you just been carrying my phone around all week?" he asks. "'Cause that gives off serious stalker vibes. Are you going to cut off a bit of my hair while I'm sleeping to keep it in your locket -- "

"You don't have hair, dumbass, and you should be glad I have your phone, it let me call in sick for you all week."

"You called in sick for me?"

"Obviously. What, were you trying to get fired?"

Ronan shrugs.

"Ugh, why do I even bother. You're supposed to be in at four today, but you do you! Who cares!" She walks off in a huff, whirls around after twenty feet. "And put a password on your phone, idiot!"

Ronan goes to work at four. What else is he going to do? Goes in to work the next day, too, even though Sargent's at her night class and Cheng worked the lunch shift. Keeps going, day after day, and on his night off he spends too much time and way too much money in the art supply store.

He'd been telling the truth to Declan, that it got bad in his head when he wasn't busy. He's starting to think there's more to it, though, that it's easier to keep busy when it isn't bad in his head, like some fucked up Catch-22. Except maybe, this time, it's working for him and not against him. Good pushing out bad for once, instead of the other way around.

-

It's another week after he finds out he still has a job that Sargent asks, "Hey, whatever happened to Poker Face? I haven't seen him in ages."

Cheng looks conflicted, like he doesn't want to push Ronan but also like he's _dying of curiosity._

Ronan pokes at that place inside him that mostly feels empty and sometimes feels blistering white hot rage. He discovers that he's tired, and kind of sad. Tired and kind of sad isn't worth biting Sargent's head off.

"I told him to fuck off."

"What?" Cheng demands, nerves gone in a flash. "Why?"

"I was mad. He was there."

Sargent shakes her head. "You really are yourself at every hour of the day, aren't you?"

"Well, duh."

Cheng stares at him in complete and utter horror. "Ronan. I would like you to know that the single thing that I want most in the world is to arrange all manner of devious and invasive stratagems to get this man back into your life and I am _not doing it._ So you should appreciate my restraint and also make amends yourself before my restraint gives out."

Ronan has to run that through his Cheng-filter. "I'm supposed to appreciate that you're blackmailing me?"

"Yes."

"Why do you care so much?"

"Why do I care? Because! Happiness is a good and wonderful thing and I would dearly love for you to meet it _just once._ "

"Jesus, Cheng. He's not my star-crossed lover, okay? He's a guy that we kind of know. It's not the end of the world."

"Nothing is the end of the world except for the end of the world." Ronan regrets wasting his _duh_ on Sargent. "You know what you really need, Lynch? You need to have fun. You need to flirt. You need to go a date with someone who catches your eye and maybe it's a disaster or maybe it's true love or maybe it just fizzles out, that doesn't even matter. The part that matters is that you did one thing in your entire life that wasn't life-or-death."

"I do stupid shit all the time."

"Yes, I have done much of that stupid shit by your side, and am therefore qualified to state that you are the only person in the world who treats spray painting an enormous penis onto a billboard as a deadly serious matter."

"You aren't qualified to say that," Ronan says. "You haven't met everyone in the world."

Cheng shakes his head. "Fine. Consider this my last word on the subject. I only came over here to ask you about the cocktail of the day -- it's your turn to pick. What is it to be?"

Ronan grimaces. "I'll think of something, okay?"

He chews it over after Cheng leaves. He doesn't have to pick a cocktail, just because Cheng wants him to. He doesn't owe Cheng anything.

Cheng would say he's taking this too seriously.

He picks up a piece of chalk to write _beer._ There's no reason he can't just do what he always does. Anyway, Adam thought it was funny --

"Goddammit." He puts the chalk down and glares at the chalkboard.

Definitely taking this too seriously.

He picks up the chalk again and writes a single word out, neat and simple, and then he takes a picture of it and hits _send_ on his phone before shoving it deep into his pocket.

That doesn't stop him from checking it three times in the next hour.

No response.

He pokes at that used-to-be-empty spot inside him again. He feels about the same as before, tired and kind of sad. That's survivable. He'll be fine.

He's hauling a rack of hot glassware out of the dishwasher when a phone slides across the bar top and into his line of sight.

There, on the screen, is the photo Ronan had taken, _the cocktail of the day is_ and his own neat handwriting, _sorry._

"This is," Adam says, "without a doubt, the most half-assed apology I have ever gotten."

Ronan kicks the dishwasher shut. "I'm not really good at apologies."

" _I never would have guessed._ "

Silence falls. Shit. How does Ronan keep ending up in situations where he has to _talk_? And this time he can't even get shitfaced about it.

"I don't like talking about my shit," he says abruptly. "I don't like people knowing things about me, and me and my brother -- we're a mess. I didn't want to deal with it."

"I get that." Adam frowns, but it's confusion, not anger. "What I don't get is why you came to the fundraiser at all."

There's a bunch of answers to that -- for Matthew, for Adam, for the children, for the _art_ \-- but if Ronan really looks at it there's only one that stands up to any scrutiny.

"I think I was ready to break something," he says. "I think that was the only way I was going to deal with any of it at all."

"Well. Congrats, then."

"Thanks."

Adam tilts his head, that look on his face again like he's listening to something that Ronan hasn't said yet.

Ronan thinks, _what the hell._

"You need to find a new restaurant."

It catches Adam completely off guard, no chance to hide behind Poker Face. There's just enough hurt in that expression that Ronan feels like an asshole and feels profoundly relieved, at the same time.

"I want to ask you out," Ronan clarifies. "And if we go on a date in this restaurant Cheng and Sargent are going to eavesdrop."

"It's true." Sargent pops up out of nowhere. "We will."

Ronan glares at her.

She shrugs, unafraid, "I'm realistic about my flaws," and saunters off with a pitcher of water.

He shifts his focus back over to Adam, trying not to look too angry or too desperate. Tries to look like he's capable of dealing with his emotions, because he thinks that he actually is.

"No," Adam says.

Okay. It figures that as soon as Ronan found his feet he'd get shot down.

"I have terrible luck taking people out to dinner," Adam continues. "What about an art gallery?"

Ronan's heart beats once, tentatively, and a second time as it realizes that it's not going to be stomped on today.

"You -- " 

Adam raises an eyebrow: _sorry, were you going to complain about the fake out?_

Ronan can't stop himself. He smiles.

"Fine. Can we at least look at some good art?"

"Nope," Adam says, brutally cheerful. "Nothing but boring, classical paintings."

" _Why_?"

"Because. I want to hear you insult a bunch of timeless masterpieces."

It's like getting punched in the face with joy. He inhales sharply, hears a buzzing in his ears. Shakes his head, trying not to look like a total idiot. Though if his smile looks anything like the grin that Adam is giving him, that's a lost cause.

"Okay. I can do that."

He decides the whole thing is Cheng's fault. Friendship _sucks_.

-

_two fundraisers, eight defaced billboards, thirty-seven Tuesday Night Trivias, and one near-arrest for vandalism later…_

-

"Listen to this," Adam says, brandishing the local newspaper at him, because Adam is, deep in his heart, a terrible human being. " 'The large scale installation both mimics and contradicts the surrounding geography' -- "

"I hate you," Ronan says.

" -- 'locked in,' oh God, I shit you not, 'locked in an eternal debate with itself and its audience' -- "

Ronan grabs for the paper and misses.

" -- 'about the very nature of what makes art _art_ '."

"Are you done?" Ronan demands.

"Yes," Adam says, "but only because I was hitting my pain tolerance for bad writing."

"Your goddamn fault for reading the arts section. The only thing worse than art is art criticism."

"You should put on a show," Adam says. "It can't be any worse than whatever the hell this installation is."

"You're not allowed to talk to Declan anymore." Declan has been campaigning for Ronan to put some of his art on display somewhere, in a move that is part brotherly support, part 'associating the family name with something other than bartending', and mostly an attempt to get out of telling Ronan what he really thinks of his work. Not that Ronan can't tell. He knows that Declan hates his art. That's what makes it so fun to force him to look at it and ask him for his opinion.

"Oh no," Adam deadpans. "How will I cope with the tragedy."

Cheng dashes over before Adam can get too broken up about it.

"Ronan, you must know. The Professor is back."

"I didn't actually need to know that," Ronan says.

Adam, the only one among them with responsibilities in life beyond sitting in a bar and gossiping about weirdos, frowns. "The Professor?"

"Total nerd," Ronan explains, "comes in with a stack of books every few days and sits in a booth reading for hours."

"Hush," Cheng says. "You aren't telling it right."

"You aren't living it right."

Cheng ignores him. "The Professor visits frequently, wanders in as from a dream state and loses all track of time. He resides in his own world, of which we can only catch glimpses." At Adam's highly skeptical look, Cheng adds, "also, he looks like _that_ ," and nods toward the Professor's table, where Sargent is even now giving him a smile that he's too oblivious to pick up on.

Ronan has to admit. For a total nerd, the Professor is pretty hot.

"Ah," Adam says. "Okay. I was picturing a middle-aged man in a sweater vest, but the excitement makes a lot more sense now."

"I've planned it all out," Cheng says. "Blue is going to marry him, and then I will have torrid affairs with both of them."

"You have a problem," Ronan says.

Cheng sniffs. "We wouldn't have to share if you hadn't poached the last hot regular."

Adam smirks, way too fucking smug about that.

Ronan sighs, sounding annoyed. He has to fake it. The empty little space inside of him hasn't bothered him all day.

"Jesus, I hate both of you. See if I ever tell you anything."

**Author's Note:**

> It was _upsettingly_ difficult trying to invent a suitably disgusting cocktail for Ronan to mix for Adam that _doesn't already exist_. Why is whiskey in milk a thing. Why can we not all admit that whiskey is a garbage gift from a god who hates us.
> 
> If you like this fic you can [reblog it on tumblr](http://toast-the-unknowing.tumblr.com/post/172418780620/darling-dont-make-such-a-drama-shinealightonme).


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